Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize says the department will pilot 16 Quality Learning Centres next month, defined as a cluster of health facilities at different levels of care servicing the same population. He says the pilot project will involve hospitals and primary healthcare facilities.
The minister was speaking during a hybrid National Assembly sitting – where he tabled his department’s R62.5 billion budget vote for the 2021/2022 financial year.
“The pilot cluster will comprise 80 hospitals and 64 primary healthcare facilities. After incorporating the learnings from the pilot phase, the programme will gradually expand until all facilities belong to a quality learning centre,” he says.
Mkhize says R13.7 billion has been allocated for supporting tertiary healthcare services, which are offered at tertiary and central hospitals to service patients from different provinces.
The grant compensates the provinces that suffer inequality that results from this arrangement, he adds.
Mkhize says the learnings of the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic has highlighted the need to ensure that the health system is resilient in the long term to respond to future outbreaks.
“The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant health seeking deterrence and various results have pointed to this challenge. The mandates set out in the Performance Agreement that I signed with the President for the Period of June 2019 to April 2024, indicate the need for innovation to close these service delivery gaps,” he says.
Mkhize said key amongst these include the establishment of the National Health Insurance (NHI) Fund, implementing the recommendations of the Health Market Inquiry Report, building human resource capacity, quality improvement, expansion of health infrastructure, risk management, uprooting corruption and ensuring clean governance as well as building partnerships through social compact.
South Africa will on Monday begin its second phase of vaccinations, targeting 130 sites in the public sector.
The drive will focus on the population aged 60 and above and vulnerable groups, using Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer vaccine; as vaccination of the remainder of healthcare workers is being concluded.
Below are the latest coronavirus stats in SA:
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